Sphere Packing and the Seven Days of Genesis
What one has to do with the other
My last few articles have been focused on examining the seven days of Biblical Genesis by means of several apparently unrelated systems. These systems are the I-Ching, astrology, and the close-packing of equal spheres.
Up to this point, my manner of presentation has been to go through each of the seven days and apply these systems, one after another. However, I realize that such a method isolates each day, fragmenting into discreet units somethings that are better appreciated when seen within their larger context.
This is why, for the remainder of this reexamination of the seven days of Genesis, the entire sequence of days will be explored in three separate articles, with each article focusing on one of the three systems used to encrypt information into the Biblical account.
This article is going to focus on sphere packing and its relevance to the Genesis sequence. Sphere packing, or to be more precise, the close-packing of equal spheres, is concerned with determining which arrangement of equal-sized spheres is the most efficient.
It is not necessary for us to go too deeply into the mathematics involved in ball-packing. What is important for us to recognize is that if the knowledge of ball packing were ever to be forgotten, it could easily be reconstructed because it is based on immutable physical properties. Balls of equal size fit together and form different structures based on their quantity.
General systems theory holds that there are universal principles that underlie all systems whether physical, chemical, biological, mental, or social.
One Sphere
This system begins with a single sphere in the black vacuum of space.
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. (Gen 1:1–2 KJV)
I suspect that this simple ball-by-ball approach could serve an evangelical purpose. One could use it to lure an unbeliever into taking a look at Genesis by claiming the seven days were actually organized according to this ancient system of divine logic. Or you might use it to entice a believer in regular Christianity into exploring the deeper facets of Chryptianity.
Two Spheres
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Gen 1:3–5 KJV)
The two-sphere dyad serves as the ideal model to demonstrate the physics behind night and day while also eliminating the foundation on which Flat-Earthism is built.
Three Spheres
Three spheres rolling inwards towards the gap at their center. Ripples resulting from a dropped pebble.
The doughnut-shaped fireball expanding in the head of a mushroom cloud.
All that together with the text for the second day:
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. (Gen 1:6–7 KJV)
And you point out that the waters below and the gasses above both seem to display the same sort of motion as manifested by the three spheres.
Four Spheres
Add a fourth sphere to the involving triad and the moving structure becomes locked into place.
The fourth sphere creates a tetrahedron. This shape has the highest surface area to volume ratio. This makes it an ideal shape for tank traps.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. (Gen 1:9–11 KJV)
The Bible talks of the waters being gathered together and dry land appearing, but that can only happen if land that was originally underwater rose above the level of the ocean. This occurs through volcanic and tectonic processes.
However, that is not the only form in which the tetrahedron is manifested on this day. Consider the following passage from Buckminster Fuller’s Critical Path (1981), in which he reveals how he would answer the question “What is a flame?” so that a child could understand.
Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree’s log. The Earth revolves and the trees revolve as the radiation from the Sun’s flame reaches the revolving planet Earth. By photosynthesis the green buds and leaves of the tree convert that Sun radiation into hydrocarbon molecules, which form into the bio-cells of the green, outer, cambium layer of the tree. The tree is a tetrahedron that makes a cone as it revolves. The tree’s three tetrahedral roots spread out into the ground to anchor the tree and get water. Each year the new, outer-layer, green-tree cone revolves 365 turns, and every year the tree grows its new tender-green, bio-cell cone layer just under the bark and over the accumulating cones of previous years. Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year’s Sun-energy impoundment. So the fire is the many-years-of-Sun-flame-winding now unwinding from the tree. When the log fire pop-sparks, it is letting go a very sunny day long ago, and doing so in a hurry.¹
So, it seems that the tetrahedron can represent both a volcano and a tree.
Five Spheres
I draw attention to the similarities the shape has with the mechanism of vision.
If space permits, I also show how the shape could be seen as a representation of a plucked string. Making the connection to sound. Then to speech and the rational mind and how we hear an internal voice when we think to ourselves.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. (Gen 1:14–16 KJV)
This day on this level is about seeing the lights in the sky and thinking about what they signify, providing clarity both in vision and thought.
Six Spheres
At this point, you should remind your student that, on the day God when separated the waters below from the waters above, the structure was with three balls.
20 And God saith, ‘Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.’ 21 And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind, and God seeth that it is good. 22 And God blesseth them, saying, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and the fowl let multiply in the earth:’ (Gen 1:20–22 YLT)
This day returns to the waters below by filling them with fish. It also returns to the waters above by filling the sky with birds.
I like to differentiate the two days and their structures by suggesting that the day represented by the three balls is all about water and its separation into these two separate domains. Whether composed of liquid or gas, it maintains its identity by manifesting in the same form, as an evolving torus.
This new day with its six-ball structure is not about the waters themselves, but rather it focuses on animal life in the waters below as well as in the atmosphere above.
There is more to this shape than what I can convey with this rather simplistic explanation. Additional complex explorations will have to wait. First, we will consider each system in isolation before examining how they interact with one another.
Seven Spheres
I should note that these structures are understood to be floating in empty space. The shapes the structures take are based on the laws of symmetry and gravitational attraction.
The previous day was concerned with life in the waters below and those within the atmospheric gasses above. This day is about the realm between those two.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen 1:24–27 KJV)
When you are using clay balls or whatever to demonstrate how the structures match up with what happens on the corresponding days, there is no need to bring up anything that conflicts with the zoological details of the text.
On this day, for instance, God created, according to the text, the non-plant things that live on the land between the waters below and the atmospheric gasses above. Basically, all animals that live on dry land and don’t fly, including insects, even if they do fly, I’m guessing. It doesn’t really matter.
Things will get more complicated as well as more accurate when we shift to using astrology to decrypt the seven days. At this point, we are just noting the coincidences between specific numbers of balls and the events on certain days in the week of creation. We aren’t looking to directly contradict the text.
There is already the contradiction inherent in the text separating the creation of light on the first day from the creation of the Sun on the fourth. It isn’t necessary to say that the second ball is the sun, it could just be considered a localized region of light. However you want to word it, in the end, the two spheres allow for modeling the physics behind day becoming night, and night becoming day, with one ball representing the mass on which we stand and the other an orb of light.
Eight Spheres
Once an eighth sphere is added, the structure becomes unstable. The system breaks down. Order collapses.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (Gen 2:1–3 KJV)
Something seems off here. These are not the actions one would associate with a time of instability and collapse. Inaction is more in line with the single sphere, isolated in the dark.
Indeed that is exactly what has transpired. Think of the sequence as the series of notes in an octave. DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, TI, with the sequence ending where it began, on DO, one octave higher.
DO
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. (Gen 1:2 KJV)
RE
God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Gen 1:3 KJV)
MI
Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. (Gen 1:6 KJV)
FA
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. (Gen 1:9 KJV)
SOL
Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. (Gen 1:14 KJV)
LA
God saith, ‘Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.’ (Gen 1:20 YLT)
TI
God saith, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind:’ and it is so. (Gen 1:24 YLT)
And God saith, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.’ (Gen 1:26 YLT)
DO
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. (Gen 1:2 KJV)
The system resets before the eighth stage is reached. The instability never has the opportunity to manifest itself. Crisis averted.
The Best Keys Are Taboo
I suspect that the prohibition against making idols was sufficient to make the use of structures formed from groups of spheres an unlawful activity, which no doubt served to keep the key a safe distance from the text it unlocked.
Learn more about the math behind sphere packing here.
Learn about the connections among pearls sown before swine, salt that has lost its flavor, and sphere packing here.
- Fuller, R. Buckminster. Critical Path. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981, (Chapter 3, pp. 60–63).